Al Qaeda websites claim Abu Yahya al-Libi alive

DUBAI: Two websites linked to Al-Qaeda announced on Sunday that they will air a new video featuring the jihadist network's deputy leader Abu Yahya al-Libi, whom Washington claimed last week to have killed. The messages posted by Ansar and Alfidaa websites suggested that Libi remains alive. "Soon, a video message by Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, may Allah protect him," read the message posted by Al-Qaeda's Sahab media arm on both sites, one of which was put online on around 1500 GMT on Sunday. The United States said on Tuesday that Al-Qaeda's number two was killed in a drone strike, in the heaviest blow to the organisation since the killing of its founder Osama bin Laden. Pakistani authorities spoke of a pre-dawn CIA drone strike on Monday on a compound in North Waziristan, near the Afghan border while US officials did not disclose details of the attack. A trusted lieutenant of bin Laden, Libi appeared in countless Al-Qaeda videos and was considered the chief architect of its global propaganda machine.